Joe Cook
Bear Corn’s odd look has people often mistaking it for a mushroom or some other type of fungus. However, it is a member of the Broomrape family, low-growing, fleshy-looking, herbaceous plants that obtain nourishment by being parasites upon other plants. It produces no chlorophyll—the matter which gives plants their green color—so its entire stem is sort of a yellowish brown.
You may have to get down on your knees to really appreciate its minute parts. Each half-inch flower is protected by a scale-like leaf bract, while protruding beyond the lower lip of the three fused petals are four stamens so small that you may need to use a magnifying glass to see them.
In early spring you may come across a colony of Bear Corn that has been scattered about and looking like it has been trampled upon. Most likely this is the result of black bears feeding upon the plants, as the animals find the plant to be some of the most delicious and abundant of plants growing at this time of year. It also known that they consume the Bear Corn, not so much for the nourishment, but because it is a laxative that gets them moving, so to speak, after their long winter slumbers.
Flower Fast Facts
FLOWER: The small, half inch, yellowish to tan flowers have two lips, with the upper one forming a hood over a three-lobed, spreading lower lip.
LEAVES AND STEM: Unconventional looking, the tannish-yellow leaves of Squawroot are scalelike and crowded tightly onto a fleshy looking stalk of three to nine inches in height.
BLOOM SEASON: April to June
About This Series
“Mountain Wildflowers” features a wildflower from the Blue Ridge region each month from March to October. Leonard M. Adkins has written for Blue Ridge Country for more than two decades and is the author of 20 books about travel, hiking and nature. His Wildflowers of the Appalachian Trail, which received the prestigious National Outdoor Book Award, provides the photographs and some of the information he writes about in each “Mountain Wildflowers.” It and his other works may be obtained through his website.